New Fbody owner with some issues

[guitar00dude]

Hey everyone.. great site here.. its been very informative but i have a few questions i cant find around here. First off I have a 96 Firebird Formula M6 with 1 previous owner and had 94,000 on it when i got it last july... anyway here are the questions....

1. My car makes a weird rattaling sound when i dont have my foot on the clutch... when i depress the clutch it goes away... when i take my foot off of it again you hear it... whats up?

2. the car is fully stock except a K&N cold air kit... i want exhaust.. with lots of drone lol i see on here most ppl hate drone but i love it.. i have a mustang and i love that hum at around 2,100.... im between the gmmg and slp lm1 system... whats different between the two.. when i listen online it seems like slp has no tone and gmmg has tons... im new to fbodys and really have heard any exhausts in person... to break it down im lookign for exhaust with tone and drone... i dont care about much more

3. THe pilot light. i guess its called.. on my radio that lights up to show you the time and station doesnt work... then one tiem when driving back from brooklyn ny to south nj.. on the turnpiek it worked for likr 20 mins... im just wondering if thats a fuse of the bulb in the radio itself.. its a stock radio


i probably have tones more questions but i cant remember right now... thanks to anyone who can help me with this stuff later!

[Orcus79]

I may be able to answer question number one but not the rest. The rattle could be the friction plate(clutch disk). There might be a broken spring that could be rattlling around. Any strange vibrations going on at the same time or that seem out of place?

[guitar00dude]

well when i have the clutch pedal from liek half way and to the floor you hear nothing.... once you let go of the clutch you hear itit sound sliek a spinning sound and honestly it sounds liek something is loose and is moving ways it shouldnt be

[Orcus79]

Best suggestion I can give is to get it up in the air and inpsect for any broken or worn parts. Som time the only way to do that is to pull the tranny to get a good look.

[guitar00dude]

ok thanks for your help.... .. if i need a new clutch or anything on the road.. what do you suggest?

[Orcus79]

that I do not know. My suggestion is go with a trusted set up. For clutches I would sugest RAM or McCloud(sp?), they have been around for while and have a good reputation.

I would also wait and see what the more "experianced" have to say, but there is no better insurance then getting things checked out. Also one more thing i forgot is check the universal joints in the drive shaft. The best way to do so is to pull the shaft and check the movement and play on all the bearings. Just be very carefull wiht the caps. If the needle bearing fall out you will end up knocking some loose and buying new ones. Ben there a few times on another vehicle.

[blairsW6]

sounds like a throw-out bearing to me

[gsrrob]

I had a similar problem in a car and the clutch, pressure plate, pilot bearing, and throw out bearing all checked out ok. It ended up being the inputshaft bearing inside the transmission. Hopefully yours is something simple and not the inputshaft bearing.

[The Scientist]

1. It could be any number of possibilities as you can see from previous post. It it seems bad enough you need to get it checked out or wait until your cluch completely goes out the replace the whole thing.

2. If performance is not an issue then I highly recommend Flowmaster. They have a crossflow design specifically for f-body's single inlet / dual exhaust that sounds great and has lots of interior drone. More drone that any other exhaust I have heard on an f-body.

3. Factory radio is a piece of sh!t. Unless you are very electrically inclined then it probably isnt worth trying to fix yourself. No it is not as simple as a fuse. Either live with it, find someone who has worked on these sorts of radio problems to fix it, or buy an aftermarket head-unit.

[guitar00dude]

thanks for the help ill probably have the tranny looked at sometime soon..., on another note i heard flowmaster was horrible on our fbodys i guess thats just in reference to performance not sound?

[The Scientist]

I don't mean to diss the company because most of their products are great but yeah, flowmaster (contrary to its name) designed what they call a crossflow design that does not "flow" as well as some our other options. BUT they certainly did get the sound right...WOW!!! I had a flowmaster until I upgraded to Kooks lt's and Corsa catback. If you want a muffler for sound with resonance and not performace then this is the way to go. Plus its cheap. Any local muffler shop should have or be able to get the muffler you need and simply replace you stock one. If your not into performace then you don't need the whole catback system and you can keep you stock tips.

[guitar00dude]

ok thanks alot for that clear up iwas looking once at a chart for hp for cars and various cat backs i no flowmaster was one of the worst if nof THE worst its like my everyday driver so 10 hp ...even if that... is not worth me putting out 400 more for gmmg or borla i just want myself and others to know i have a 5.7 under the hood and feel anc hear it i drove a 2002 ws6 6spd at my job [i sell performance cars] it had flowmaster and i likes the sound what should i expect in differences brtween that ls1 and my lt1 ive heard the lt1 is similar but not as raspy which ppl say makes the lt1 a better sound

[svt_eater]

ok thanks alot for that clear up iwas looking once at a chart for hp for cars and various cat backs i no flowmaster was one of the worst if nof THE worst its like my everyday driver so 10 hp ...even if that... is not worth me putting out 400 more for gmmg or borla i just want myself and others to know i have a 5.7 under the hood and feel anc hear it i drove a 2002 ws6 6spd at my job [i sell performance cars] it had flowmaster and i likes the sound what should i expect in differences brtween that ls1 and my lt1 ive heard the lt1 is similar but not as raspy which ppl say makes the lt1 a better sound

With nothing else, I am very pleased with the sound of my SLP LM catback. Cruising at around 1800-2100RPM should give a reasonable drone inside and out. Go WOT at any RPM and she goes wild! If I were to add LT's or even shorty's, it would be music to my ears!

[gd1996]

I love the sound of flowmasters on mine, not sure I'd go with anything else. Hollowed cat and a american thunder catback, love it!

[guitar00dude]

thank a lot for the feedback... right now with how cheap flowmaster is ill probably go with it.... its my everyday driver so performance really isnt an issue right now just a decent sound and drone.. seems liek flowmaster might be my ticket to this

[gd1996]

I dont think the drones that bad, but I'm used to cars with 3 or 3-1/2 exhausts, headers and no cats.... I enjoy the noise!

[guitar00dude]

i hear ya man.... i hate driving a quiet car

[T/AKing]

personally i wouldnt waste the money on a flowmaster muffler. for a few hundred more (400 really isnt a bad price at all for a nice catback) you could get something that sounds and looks a lot nicer. My 99 T/A came with a flowmaster muffler and at idle/ Under 2500 rpm it sounds pretty good but it has absolutely NO high end tone. especially compared to my buddys magnaflow the high end sound is completely opposite. Over 3k his car sounds like a loud racin beast!!!! while my $#!^master does nothing. over 3k my car is all engine noise and a woooooossshhhhh sound of air leaving the muffler..... sometimes its ok and other times i HATE it

[Monster-Inside]

get LTs that would fix all the problems

[csess]

I had my cats taken out and a custom y pipe made and then cut a flap in my magnaflow and pulled all the insulation and HOLY SH*T its loud.